At the very least, you have probably used PayPal before. It is also ok to make up a few acronyms/contractions every now and again, assuming I have approved them, eg MVac and M9 instead of Merlin 1C-Vacuum or Merlin 1C-Sea Level, but those need to be kept to a minimum.Chances are that you have heard of SpaceX. An acronym that most engineers outside of SpaceX already know, such as GUI, is fine to use. VTS-3 is four syllables compared with “Tripod,” which is two, so the bloody acronym version actually takes longer to say than the name! The key test for an acronym is to ask whether it helps or hurts communication. A “stand” at our test site is obviously a *test* stand. Those are particularly dumb, as they contain unnecessary words. For example, there should be no “HTS” or “VTS” designations for test stands. If there is an existing acronym that cannot reasonably be justified, it should be eliminated, as I have requested in the past. Unless an acronym is approved by me, it should not enter the SpaceX glossary. That needs to stop immediately or I will take drastic action-I have given enough warnings over the years. This is particularly tough on new employees. No one can actually remember all these acronyms and people don’t want to seem dumb in a meeting, so they just sit there in ignorance. Individually, a few acronyms here and there may not seem so bad, but if a thousand people are making these up, over time the result will be a huge glossary that we have to issue to new employees. Excessive use of made up acronyms is a significant impediment to communication and keeping communication good as we grow is incredibly important. One of the more famous e-mails arrived in May 2010 with the subject line: Acronyms Seriously Suck: There is a creeping tendency to use made up acronyms at SpaceX. “From time to time, Musk will send out an e-mail to the entire company to enforce a new policy or let them know about something that’s bothering him. They had to play Flappy Golf instead, which is like Flappy Bird, but at least there is some physics involved.” There’s one game they downloaded recently called Cookies or something. They also can’t play completely stupid video games. The rule is they have to read more than they play video games.

What do I do? Create artificial adversity? How do you do that? The biggest battle I have is restricting their video game time because they want to play all the time. Shake it off.’ Even if there was a little blood, but not a lot, it was fine. When I was going to school, if they punched you and there was no blood, it was like, ‘Whatever.

“If you call someone a name, you get sent home. “They might have a little adversity at school, but these days schools are so protective,” he said. He feels that the suffering helped to make him who he is and gave him extra reserves of strength and will. “It bothers Musk a bit that his kids won’t suffer like he did.

Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance